Falling
by WeyrwomanAnna
Summary: Songfic to Cloud Nine by Evanescence. I'm bad with summaries, so here goes...Defining moments for Yuna between the end of FFX and the middle of FFX-2.


Disclaimer: Sadly, I do not own the rights to FFX2. I just own a copy of it. Nor do I own Cloud Nine. It's just a good song and it fit well.

--

Ah the crazy ramblings of my first FFX(2) fic. Hopefully it's not too bad.

Lyrics are in italics, unless it's somewhere in the middle of a paragraph, and then it's just emphasis on that word or words.

--

_If you want to live, let live._

_If you want to go, let go._

_I'm not afraid to dream, to sleep, sleep forever._

Yuna sat on the edge of the airship, staring blankly out towards where he had dived off. The fayth had stopped dreaming, and taken him with them. She closed her eyes before standing and walking to the bridge. She stopped in front of Cid, her face still blank.

"Could..could you take me back to Besaid please?"

Cid looked at her, an odd look of pity on his face that didn't seem to fit his features.

"Sure, Yuna. It'll be a while. Go get some rest in the cabin, will ya?"

She nodded, and left. Curling up in a corner of one of the rooms, she fell into an uneasy sleep.

_I don't need to touch the sky._

_I just want to feel that high,_

_And you refuse to lift me._

She was back in Bevelle, and Seymour was there. She was standing on the ledge, about to fall.

"Don't worry. I can fly."

She watched him shake his head in disbelief.

"Believe."

He nodded slightly, still not quite believing her, and then she was falling.

"Yuna!"

And then there he was, falling, no, _diving_ along side her, just as he was from the airship, and she was trying to summon Valefor and the aeon wouldn't come to her calls.

And then he was dissolving into pyreflies, and disappearing, and she screamed, reaching for him, fingers passing through him as he vanished completely, and she was still _falling_ and where was Valefor?

And then she was awake, and screaming, as Rikku jumped back, holding up her hands and stammering out an apology.

"Ahh! Yunie, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, what's wrong?!"

Her fear resided to tolerable levels, and her blank mask came back.

"Nothing. Nothing's wrong."

Rikku's face fell.

"Alright. Well, you can always talk to me if you need to, ya know?"

Yuna nodded, too tired to form a reply.

"We're at Besaid now. Pops sent me to get you, but you were sleeping, so I was gonna wake you up and then you just started screaming, ya know?" Rikku looked sadly at Yuna. "Were you dreaming about him?"

Yuna didn't answer, just walked past Rikku to the lift, activating it to get to the ground.

--

_Guess it wasn't real after all._

_Guess it wasn't real all along._

She whistled, the sound loud and piercing, carrying over the ocean waves on Besaid beach. She whistled again, and again, until she couldn't, throat dry, tears leaving streak marks down her cheeks.

"Were you never real?" she whispered. "Was everything just...just a dream?"

She sobbed once, twice, hiccuping as it subsided.

"You said you'd stay with me always!" she shouted. "Was that a lie? Was it a dream like you?!"

She put her fingers to her lips, whistling one last time, before she was crying too hard to continue.

_If I fall and all is lost,_

_It's where I belong._

--

_If you want to live, let live._

_If you want to go, let go._

_I'm never gonna be your sweet, sweet surrender._

It was two years later now, and here she was, looking at a sphere that might be him. Rikku had found it, and immediately brought it to Besaid to show her, and now here she was, on an airship, wearing something called a garment grid, and a dressphere, showing more skin than she had ever been comfortable with before, but if it would let her fight, and let her find him, then she didn't care.

She wouldn't give up, wouldn't stop looking, even if she had to wear what Rikku was wearing.

"Where did you find this?" she asked.

"Kimahri found it on Mt. Gagazet, above the Fayth Scar." she smiled. "He told me 'Kimahri find sphere. Yuna needs to see sphere, see him. Kimahri trust Rikku to get sphere to Yuna.'" She giggled after finishing her imitation of Kimahri, and for the first time in a long time, Yuna smiled too.

"Thank you, Rikku."

Rikku smiled. "It's no big, ya know? Anything for my cousin Yunie!"

The third person in the cabin rolled her eyes and stood, and began walking towards the lift, catching Yuna's eye.

"Who's that?" she asked.

"Oh, that's Paine. She's one of us Gullwings. But she's so..." Rikku paused, looking for the word. "Serious."

Paine paused, raising an eyebrow as she turned to look at Rikku. "Minus two respect points, Rikku."

--

_Guess it wasn't real after all._

_Guess it wasn't real all along._

_If I fall and all is lost,_

_No light to lead the way,_

_Remember that all alone is where I belong._

She'd fallen down the hole in Djose, and she had found him, only not him, _Shuyin_, the name so unlike his as to be near poison. They looked so alike, and yet...they were nothing alike. Shuyin was...hateful. And then Nooj and Gippal had shown up and Shuyin was possessing Baralai.

And now? Now she was standing in a field, pretty much lost in the dark.

"Hey! Where am I?!"

She ran in the dark, running for who-cares-how-long before stopping and simply screaming. Then a pause, and then helplessly:

"I'm all alone.."

And then..a whistle.

"Where are you?"

And another. And then his outline was there.

"Wait!"

She ran towards him as he walked away. Another whistle, and he reappeared farther on, as she ran to the edge of the platform she was on. And then one more, and he reappeared farther away, and she ran after him anyways, up a glowing path that appeared as she walked up it.

And then...then she was in Bevelle. And he was still gone. She was alone again.

--

She was laying on one of the beds in the cabin, staring at the ceiling. She had told them what had happened, minus the part about seeing him, and now...now she just wanted to sleep. She was tired. Tired of looking, tired of not finding anything but ghosts of whistles that she wasn't even completely sure were real, despite seeing an outline of him. She closed her eyes, letting her breath out in one annoyed huff. She rolled over onto her side, staring at the wall. She closed her eyes then, and willed herself to sleep.

--

_In a dream,_

_Will you give your love to me?_

_Beg my broken heart to beat,_

_Save my life, change my mind. _

She was back in Macalania woods, as they were then, not the fading trees of now. She could feel the tears on her cheeks, and the cool water, and then his hands on her arms.

"Yuna..."

And she opened her eyes and looked up at them before closing them, anticipating the rest of the memory, but instead it shifted to wind in her face.

"I love you."

She had said that then, and meant it now, even if it was a dream and she couldn't control it. She knew what would happen next, he would put half solid arms around her shoulders and she would feel as they lost substance and then feel as he walked through her to dive over the edge of the airship.

But this time it was different. His arms were still half solid, and he was still fading. That wasn't new. But the whispered "I love you too." into her ear as he once again walked through her before diving off the end of the ship was, and she froze, before chasing him off the edge of the airship, diving after him, catching up and falling with him, as he wrapped now all-too-solid arms around her and hugged her close as they fell and fell and fell, until she landed with a thump against Valefor and he fell right through, and she screamed, watching him fall and fall as Valefor drifted slowly down after his receding figure, unable to save the both of them.

--

And she jolted awake, heart thumping against her ribcage, racing painfully. She pressed a hand to her chest over her heart, as if to slow the _thumpthumpthumpthump_ with just her hand. It didn't slow, and she snuck past the sleeping figures of Rikku and Paine in two of the other beds, going to the lift, and turning it on, heading for the deck.

It was raining--then again, it always was in the Thunder Plains, where they had landed last night after deciding that she should sing, try to bring the people of Spira back together with just a song. Yeah, right. That was gonna happen.

It was the equivalent of trying to hold back Sin with a piece of string and a paring knife. She knew it was futile, but she was Yuna, Yunie, _High Summoner who defeated Sin_ and there was nothing she couldn't do. Right? Right. Except bring back the one she loved.

Her heart felt more broken now than ever before, now that she had seen him on the farplane, and knew he was dead, gone, not just a dream, not reality, but some limbo state where he was dead and in the Far plane, and that _hurt_ because now she knew her search was futile and had always been so. Her breath left her in a rush, as a half surpressed sob. She sat down with a thump, leaning against the wall of the small opening leading to the deck, as she listened to the rain covering up her half strangled cries.

She soon exhausted herself crying, and sitting as she was, she drifted back to sleep.

--

And there he was, standing there, looking so real, so alive, and she felt her heart breaking all over again.

"Yuna..."

But no...this wasn't a memory, and she could see him there and as she took a step closer, raising a hand, he caught it and was solid, real, there, and she let out a sob.

"No...Don't cry."

He pulled her against him, and her heart beat like a rabbit's as her stomach rattled crazily around her midsection, and Oh fayth, she could smell him. It couldn't be a dream--it'd hurt more. It'd hurt so much if she woke up from this. She wrapped her arms around him, and pressed her face into his chest and sobbed as he made soothing noises and after a minute she was calmer and more like herself. And she realized he was talking to her, telling her things he remembered, about their time together.

"...and I said always, and I meant always and I'm sorry that this happened, but please, Yuna, don't be so heartbroken."

She pulled away from him a little, looking up into his eyes, his -oh-so-bright, and oh-so-blue eyes, and she couldn't help but nod a little as he gave a small smile.

"We'll meet again, someday, but for now, you have to keep on going, let your heart mend, and live for me, because you know I can't."

"But..." she started, voice cracking a bit. "I don't want to live without you. Can't I...can't I stay here?"

He shook his head firmly. "No. You...you can't. You have a whole life to live, you can't just throw it away on a dream."

And she nodded, because she saw the sense in his words, if only because he was so infuriatingly right all the time on important things. And he pulled her chin up to face him and leaned down and she closed her eyes, anticipating the kiss, and then everything was gone, and she was falling, landing with an all-too-real and all-too-startling thump as she hit the deck, having slid sideways down the wall.

_If I fall and all is lost._

_No light to lead the way._

_Remember that all alone is where I belong._

And she was alone, _again_ but her heart wasn't quite as broken, and she knew she could wait to see him again, that she would live for him, so that she could share the things he would never see-do-hear-feel with him when they met again in the Far plane years hence. If they met in the Far plane. All of a sudden she wasn't too sure if he was really there or a dream-memory leading her away, but she hoped it was the former, and not the latter, because the former meant she would see him again someday while the latter meant she was going crazy. She wondered if it was bad to hope that someone you loved was dead.

She decided that, in this case, probably not.

--


End file.
